


Do you like good music?

by Imogen_Penn



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 18:10:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6668995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imogen_Penn/pseuds/Imogen_Penn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Disagreements over what constitutes good music don't necessarily mean you aren't made for each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do you like good music?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nemhaine42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemhaine42/gifts).



> Prompted by nemhaine42 over on tumblr who asked: Darcy x Bucky, electroswing?
> 
> It honestly has very little to do with electroswing. My hand slipped and I wrote some gratuitous fluff. :)

“Good god Lewis,” he bellowed over the noise in the kitchen, “what is this travesty?”

It was Friday night, and they were just back from a two week long mission. He had known that she would be in the overly grandiose common kitchen cooking up enormous portions of something incredible. Looked like pot roast this time.

He had also known that she would be playing some very modern music very loud.

“Argggghhhhhhh”, he caught her annoyed groan even through the noise filling the kitchen.

Yep, he had known that was going to happen to.

“Jarvis?” she yelled, and the music fell in a gentle decrescendo to a reasonable background volume.

“Suppose that means everyone came home safe if you’re chipper enough to torment me, grandpa.” She cut her eyes over to him briefly before turning back to the stove where she was stirring a large pot of risotto.

“Safe and sound,” he confirmed, because you didn’t joke about stuff like that in the Tower, you just didn’t. “You wanna explain what’s assaulting my ears?”

“Electro swing,” she said over her shoulder, still focused firmly on her task.

“Ruination of good music, if you ask me,” he said, taking a few steps towards her and leaning against the counter.

“Don’t remember that I did Barnes,” she said, but her voice sounded…tired.

It was unexpected.

He had gotten used to this. Coming home from missions, finding her, teasing her about her music and getting in the way of her cooking until the memories of whatever had gone before fell away for a little while.

He hadn’t told Steve what she meant to him, how he felt about her, but then he hadn’t had to. Steve somehow always managed to give him this time with her after missions before everyone descended on the kitchen. And he kept his nagging to “ask her out already” to a minimum.

But her usual bright and patient teasing, her tolerance of having him in her space, had been replaced with stiff distance.

“Hey,” he said, stepping in to draw her attention away from the cooking, “what’s up?”

It troubled him more than he like to see her face drawn and tired. There were dark circles under her eyes.

“Nothing,” she said with a weak smile, “you can pick the music.”

“Bullshit,” he reached out and clicked off the burner, “you look like a wreck Lewis. Now you can tell me what’s going on, or you can wait until Steve gets in here and gives you the Captain face or Natasha starts threatening to kill everyone who’s ever wronged you.”

To his utter surprise and horror, cheerful, energetic, take no bullshit Darcy Lewis burst into tears.

“Uhhhh, shit…” he said inelegantly. “Darce I didn’t…” he gave up trying to talk his way out of this one, took a step in, and wrapped his arms around her.

For a moment, he thought he had finally done something right, because her head fell against his chest and she started taking deep breaths, but she never dropped her arms from where they were clutched protectively in front of her and her shoulders were stiff and tense under his hands.

He stepped back immediately.

“I’m sorry,” he said, dropping his arms. “Can I do anything? Do you want me to find Jane?”

She shook her head with a damp sort of half laugh.

“Don’t worry,” she said, visibly pulling herself together, “I’m being stupid and you should ignore me.”

“You’re not stupid,” he said immediately, violently disliking the tone in her voice, “and I could never ignore you.”

She looked up at him, her big brown eyes swimming.

“Can you stop for just, like, five seconds?” she asked, and from the tone in her voice he could tell she was asking in desperation, but he had no idea of the cause.

“Stop what?”

“Being so damn nice,” she cut out.

He blinked at her. “You want me to stop being nice to you?”

She ran a hand through her hair. “I just need some space, you know?” she said in a small voice.

He should probably just accept it and walk away. He knew that he could be difficult to deal with. And he knew that was probably the understatement of the year. It’s why he had never given in to Steve’s nagging.

By lord help him if he wasn’t a bit of a masochist. He supposed, at this point in his life, he’d come by it honestly.

“Whatever you need,” he said, “just so long as you tell me what I did so I don’t do it again, yeah?”

“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?” she asked, but it didn’t sound like she was really talking to him.

“Say _what_?” he said, a little more sharply than he intended, but he was starting to get worried. Had something terrible happened, was she _dying_?

“Oh come on,” she said, her arms wrapping tightly around her chest, “you obviously know how I feel about you. I know you don’t…whatever…I mean, I know who I am and I know who you are. But this mission. I…I caught the chatter about that,” she pointed to the already healed over slash visible through a tear in his shirt across his chest, “and they wouldn’t tell me anything else so I’ve been sitting here for three whole days thinking you were probably dead and I just…” she swallowed a jerky breath.

“I just need some space to get okay with just being your kitchen buddy again, okay? I promise I won’t bring it up again and it’s not a big deal I just…It was just a shitty few days.” She wound to a halt, her breath coming haphazardly, staring at the floor.

He felt like he couldn’t breath for a moment. He tried to think about it, tried to rationalise, remember all the reasons that had stopped him before. But she was standing there hurt and crying because she didn’t _know_.

“Darcy,” it was barely above a whisper, but she looked up at him sharply. “I don’t think you have _any_ goddam idea who you are.” All it took was one step, a hand behind her neck, and he was kissing her.

For a moment, all he could feel was her surprise, all he could taste was the salt of her tears, and then her arms were around him, her hands against his spine, and he could taste the warmth of her as her lips parted beneath his, and he could smell vanilla in her hair.

He pulled back with a short breath in. This wasn’t the time to get lost in her. It would be so, so easy.

“Uhhh…” said Darcy slowly, her cheeks flushed pink, “what?”

“You’re an idiot,” he said fondly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “and so am I.”

“Why…exactly?” she looked a little stunned. He refused to feel at all smug about it.

“Because I had _no idea_ how you felt. Feel,” he corrected himself, “and you have apparently spectacularly missed how I find you every single time after a mission and how much that means to me…how much I…” he stopped, shoving his hands in his pocket, suddenly feeling very exposed.

“Oh,” she said, still sounding stunned, but a slow smile growing across her face, “Yeah, I did miss that I guess.”

“I’m sorry you were worried,” he said, taking a step towards her, gratified as she stepped into him, her hands falling around his waist, her head against his chest.

“It sucked,” she said slightly muffled against his shirt, which he belatedly realised was probably filthy. She didn’t seem to care though, and the thought made him smile.

“Won’t happen again,” he said.

She let out an amused snort.

“I mean, I can’t promise no knives will be thrown at me again,” he grinned, “but you won’t be kept out of the loop. I’ll get you the clearance.”

“There’s a nosy intern security clearance now?” she said sarcastically, but her hands were under the hem of his shirt, warm and solid against his skin, so he didn’t take the bait and responded honestly.

“There’s a significant other security clearance,” he said simply.

“Oh,” she said quietly.

“If that’s what you want,” he added hesitantly.

“Yeah,” she said, pulling away a little to look up at him, “that’s what I want.”

“Good,” he said, “because I want to take you out dancing tomorrow night, show you what real music sounds like.”

“You watch it,” she said with a grin, “or “I’ll be the next person throwing knives at you.”

“Uh huh,” he said tolerantly, “sure.”

He stopped her inevitable retort by bending down to kiss her again. He thought it was a winning solution. And then he felt the drag of her teeth against his lip and he found himself quite unable to think about anything else.


End file.
